Wednesday, September 26, 2007

In the summer I was reading through my favourite blogs, and discoveredthe Dani at TKDchick was celebrating her 800th post by having a draw.The winner of the draw would receive something made by Dani herself.I left a comment, asking to be included in the draw, and thought nothingmore about it. After all, I never win anything. Well, guess what?????

I won!! Really!! And today, when I got home from work, and the dentist,I found a package in my mailbox. I could bearly contain myself until Icould get into the house, drop my stuff, and open the package. Whatwould it be??

I only regret that it was too dark to take a truly decent photo of thecontents of the package, and most especially of the needle book that Danistitched for me. It's one of JBW French Country Cat. SomehowDani figured out that I love cats. Where on earth she got this idea fromI have no idea (cough...cough) but I figure the girl's just plain psychic.The cat is about the same size as my thumb and stitched in the mostbeautiful of verigated thread colours. The stitches are so tiny. Andof course the cat is made up of tiny motifs featuring cats in variousposes, birds, flowers and hearts. It's exquisite!!

This piece is stitched on 30 count (!!) coconut maccaroon LakesideLinen, using Silk n Colours Rusty Amber. Thanks to Dani for theinfo. She also sent me a package of Piecemakers Tapestry needleswhich I've read other stitchers go into raptures over so I can't waitto try them for myself. There is a bundle of Autumn hued DMCthreads, a yummy looking piece of chocolate almond candy whichI'll share with DH, and a lovely post card which shows a scene fromthe village where Dani lives. I love cards like this, and actually havecollected a few over the years.

These pictures give you a bit of an idea of how this piece looks, since myown words just couldn't do it justice.

I plan to take this piece into work (carefully) to show it off to all the girls.I talked to my Mom on the phone tonight, and told her all about this, andshe's anxious to see it too.

Thank you Dani for taking the time to do something nice like this forsomeone you've only met on the net. It means so much to me, and Iwill treasure it always.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Well, back to a posting dedicated to stitching...mostly. Another weekswork on Faith and I'm well past the half way stage. I was a bit worriedat the start that some of the thread colours would not show up too wellagainst the Queen Anne's Lace Jobelan that I chose to stitch this projecton. I did a floss toss, but a full skein of thread will show up better then adouble strand, so I still wasn't sure. In the end I might have wished thatthe Magnolia colour, which is what the flower is stitched in, showed up abit more, but it's not too bad. I am very glad that I decided to stitch theboarder in Rosy Glow instead of the Magnolia though. And I am quiteenchanted with the little snail climbing up the stem of the flower on theleft. How cute is that??

I went to Stitching Bits n Bobs website. I wanted to check on an orderthat I'd placed for threads and a couple of charts about three weeksago. I went through some of the "new" arrivals. Not a good idea.Before I knew it my finger was clicking on the "order" button, overand over again. It must have been a muscle spasm. Or a nervous twitch.Would you believe I was possessed maybe??? Sigh!! I'm so weak!!

My currant read. This would be classified as Epic Fantasy. Bookfour in this series. The problem with this series is that the authortends to release a new book with a wait of about 2-3 years inbetween. It's been 10 years since the first book came out. Thisone's been out for a year. These books are wonderful reads, butthe author has crammed each book with characters, and withdetail. Lot's and lots of detail. And I'm having trouble remember-ing everything that's happened in the passed, and also keepingall the characters and their relationships straight.

You get the complete background of each country involved in thestory. You get it's mythology, it's religion, the history of it's rulersand it's hero's, it's traditions, it's enemies, and it's allies. As youcan imagine, each book is big. And because of all this, it's hard toremember from book to book what's happened to each personfeatured, as well as to each country, province, city, town, and village.You've heard the expression "a cast of thousands"?? Well, in eachof these books that is very much the case. And each of thesecharacters has a history too. This author makes Tolkien look like adilettante.

I could read each of the previous books again, and then read thisone, but they are dense reads, small print, and it would take quitea while. I'd probably forget everything again by the time that Igot to book four. So I'll just keep plugging away. In spite of all thisI'm still loving the book.

It'll officially be Autumn when we wake up tomorrow morning, so lastSunday I pulled out all of my Fall and Halloween decorations. I lovethese colours. This is the divider between our front entrance way and

the living room. The weather here has been unseasonably warm, if notdownright hot at times. According to the weather forecasters we're infor a warmer then normal Fall, and very dry.

It's also election season here. Our provincial election is in about threeweeks. In the States the equivalent would be an election to pick a newgovernor for each State...I think. As usual the accusations, and thedenials, the claims and the counterclaims, are all flying fast and furious.And we're suppose to wade through it all and make sense of it, andignore the blarney. All so that we can (hopefully) elect an effectiveleader/party who'll run the province, and not ruin it. It's going to be along three weeks.

We went shopping for a few things this morning. One of the things thatwe needed was cat food. Phoebe will only eat Fancy Feast Turkey.Rupert is on special food from the vets. When we got home and unloadedthe car we dumped everything in the front hall to get sorted. Andhere's Rupert sitting on top of the case of his food. My question is....how'd he know it was his???

Does anyone know what's happened to Tempest Fugit's blog??? Ibelieve her name is Ann, and she's in France somewhere. And shestitches the most amazing samplers. When I try to follow my usuallink to her blog I get a message saying that the requested pagedoesn't exist. My Favourite Things' blog is gone too. It's messagesays that it's been deleted by the author.

Shannon, the Queen Anne's Lace Jobelan is lovely stuff to stitch on.A nice hand dyed piece, with the colour nicely layered (if that's theright word for it). A subtle change in the colour. And I love workingon evenweave. It's a nice soft piece of fabric too. I don't like a stifffabric, since I don't stitch in hand.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

This blog is really a celebration of books, but first a wee progress photo ofFaith. Stitched on 28 count hand dyed Queen Anne's Lace Jobelan. Idecided to switch the colour on the boarder. It was suppose to be themagnolia colour, but I decided that I wanted the boarder to have a bitmore of a presence in the piece so I used Rosy Glow instead. Since thisproject is for my friend I can always stitch it again for me using thecalled for colour on the boarder, if I want to.

And now onto my day yesterday...devoted to books!!! I was unable tofind anyone able to join me for a trip into Toronto to see Diana Gabaldon,so I was considering not going at all. Then DH asked if I'd go if I didn'thave the almost 4 hour bus ride (total) to contend with. When I saidyes he offered to drive me to Yorkdale mall, and to pick me up from thereat the end of the day. I was so thrilled and touched that he would wastea couple of hours of his day doing that, and contending with traffic on the401 highway, just to get me closer to the city, and save me time andexpense. He's a keeper folks!!

So we left here at 9:45 in the morning, and got to Yorkdale mall at 10:30.From Yorkdale I took the subway down to the Eaton Centre, where thebookstore was located, arriving there around 11:00. No sign of activityregarding the signing at that time, so I asked someone what the set upwould be, and where in the store it would take place. Indigo book storesare usually two story affairs. Once I knew more or less what was goingto be happening I realized that I had time to kill, so began wandering aroundthe store, browsing.

It was lovely to just walk around, picking up books and reading the sleevesfor descriptions of the story inside. Seeing what was new out, and pokingthrough the sales tables looking for buried treasures. And finding them.Indigo also sells book related, and relaxation related home stuff, such ascozy blankets, lap desks, candles, some scrape book materials, smallstorage stuff for desks, and stationary. I kept an eye on the area wherethey'd begun to set up for the signing as I wandered.

By 12:30 rows of chairs, in two sections, were set up in front of a smallstage, and people began to sit down. There were chairs five across ineach of the two sections, and maybe six rows down. Once those werefull people who arrived later had to stand. I had a front row seat. Sincethe signing wasn't to start until 2:00 there was time to kill, but I'dbought a magazine, a couple of books, as well as the new Diana Gabaldonbook, so I browsed through the magazine for awhile. Then I beganchatting with my neighbours, discussing books, and then we all gotchatting with the sound man, and a representative from MsGabaldon's publishing house and time just flew by.

Then it was 2:00 and Diana G. was on stage, greeted by enthusiasticapplause, and she began to talk. She read a couple of excerpts frombook seven in the Claire/Jaime series which she is writing now.There will definitely be a book seven and a book eight, for those ofyou who are wondering. Then she answered a few questions from theaudience.

The books have been optioned again for a movie, but thingsare still in the early stages there. She's also working on a modern daymurder mystery and that's coming along. Book three in the LordJohn series is coming out in November, which was a surprise sincebook two just came out in August. Not that we're complaining.She's also working with an artist on a graphic novel which will tell astory that takes place during the time of Outlander, from Jaime andMurtagh's point of view.

Then, once the questions were done, she settled at a table to signbooks. I had the new Lord John book to be signed, and I'd broughtmy treasured hardcover copy of Outlander, first edition, to be signedas well. I didn't know if she was signing more then one book, but shedid, so I chose to have her sign Outlander for me, and the Lord Johnbook for my friend Mary.

And here is a picture of the two of us, taken by an obliging store employeeon my camera. As always when meeting a person who's body of work,either musically or in the written word, I admire I went somewhatcatatonic. I babbled (I think) in answer to her questions. I managed notto trip going up onto the stage, and getting down again. I may have beenshaking, just a wee bit. She's a lovely lady, with a sparkling personalityand a great stage presence. It was a great pleasure to meet her in person.I left the store and proceeded to hyperventilate out in the privacy of thevery busy main mall.

With time to kill until I had to return to Yorkdale to meet DH, I thenmade my way to the World's Biggest Bookstore, where I browsed andshopped for over an hour. Then I took the subway back up to Yorkdale,where I still had time to kill, and did so in the Indigo bookstore there.

When DH picked me up at 5:20 I had the above stash in my bags....Love Pauline Gedge and her historical fiction. This is her latest. The booknext to it is a first time novel by this author and takes place in Japan. Ithas some good reviews by some heavy duty authors, including ElizabethGeorge, so I was intrigued and decided to get it. I love books on Japan.

These two hard covers were on sale. I've read Practical Magic by AliceHoffman, so was pleased to get another book of hers. The short storiesin the second book include some of my favourite authors, writing aboutthe mythology of Ireland.

I don't know if anyone remembers the lovely Victoria magazine which wasaround for about 15 years or so and abruptly ceased publication aboutfour years ago. I've been collecting books published by them and now havearound 8 of them. Lovely, well written, exquisitely photographed books onwide ranging subjects, from exploring Britain or France, to writing letters,to drinking tea. I found these two books, and they were on sale for really,really cheap.

I collect Mary Engelbreit related books too. This one was on a sale table.

And finally, this book was on sale, and I love it. There are lots of beautifulpictures of coach houses around Toronto, both interiors and exteriors. It'sa great book if you like old architecture, gardens, interior design or Torontoand it's history.

After DH picked me up we drove back to Georgetown, and went to theCopper Kettle pub where I treated him to dinner and a pint of his favouritebrew, as a small thank you for being such a wonderful DH.

It was a perfect day. And after all that walking, and hauling of heavy booksI slept like a log last night.

Hope I haven't bored you all too much. I'm still walking on air today.

Hi Choko, commenting all the way from Japan. A cross stitcher, and anincredible sewer. She makes some amazing clothes for herself. I'm justreading her blog for the first time too.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

This is as far as I can go on A Spot of Tea with the thread that I have.Just one more large motif to go, and then it'll be done. This motif will havespace for my initials and the date. I could make a serious start on it, but Iam assuming that the thread that I've ordered will be a different dye lotand might have a noticeable colour difference. So I'll wait and stitch thefinal motif entirely in the new thread so it doesn't look mismatched oroff.

Meanwhile, I'll start on LHN's "Faith" which I want to stitch for ourfriend Sue who became a minister last year. Years ago she stitched oneof the samplers for DH and my wedding, so I owe her one. Just have togo through my stash and choose a fabric to stitch it on.

I'm almost done reading KhaledHosseini's latest book, A ThousandSplendid Suns. I am enjoying this book even more then I did The KiteRunner. I don't know if that's because this book focuses on the livesof two women, but I'm more emotionally involved in the story. MrHosseini really has a talent for creating strong, three dimensionalcharacters, and also for drawing vivid pictures of the Afghanistancountryside and cities with his words. It's a brutal story in manyways, but it helps explain the situation, past and present, over there.It's a book that takes you out of your comfort zone and transportsyou to another world that seems very alien to ours. And then itpresents characters that we find we can relate to, and understand,which makes their world far less alien after all.

This weekend one of my favourite authors is appearing at theIndigo Bookstore in the Eaton Centre, in downtown Toronto.Diana Gabaldon will be signing copies of her newest book, whichis the second of her "Lord John" series. It's funny that Karenposted a review of her book "Outlander" (called, for someunknown reason "CrossStitch" when released in the U.K.) onher blog a week ago. She said that the story wasn't to her taste.As for me, I've read all of Diana Gabaldon's books, and I've readOutlander twice. I have it in hardcover. I'm hoping to go tothe book signing on Saturday, which means traveling for abouttwo hours by Go bus, and TTC and I'm hoping to get my copyof Outlander signed as well.

The Toronto Film Festival is in full swing as well, and if myfriend Mary accompanies me to the book signing (she'sanother D. Gabaldon fan) she wants to go hunting celeb'safterwards. Don't know about that, but a trip to the World'sBiggest Bookstore, this time sans DH, will definitely be onthe schedule as well. I'm too much of a babbling nerd aroundceleb's to want to go trying to meet them in public.

Dani, yes, on occasion I've been known to pick up the odd JohannaLindsay book to read. Actually, some of her books that I've got areover 20 years old I think. Possibly closer to 30. Eek!! I'mpartial to Bertrice Small, and to Judith McNaughton as well.

Lynn, I read Jodi Picoult too. I read her book My Sister's Keeperwhen I was in a book club a few years ago, and started tocollect her stuff after that. She's great.

Lelia, I've read all of Anne Rice's Vampire, and Witch books.Some I've loved (The Vampire Lestat, The Body Thief, Queenof the Damned) and some I've been decidedly lukewarm about(Violin, Memnoch the Devil). Darlene and I went to a booksigning of hers about 10 years ago and so we met her, for fiveseconds, and had our books signed. I've not bought her latestbook on a year in the life of Jesus (aged 8). My most favouritebook of hers though has to be The Mummy. A really good story.

Karen, I passed on my small collection of Star Wars books toowhen I was weeding my library last winter. I'm more of aTrekker then a Star Wars fan anyways.

As always, thanks everyone for your kind words about mylibrary. After all, you can never have too many books.

And Phoebe greatly appreciates every one's kind words as well. Rupert,well, he just takes it all in stride.

Sunday, September 09, 2007

I have some progress on Spot of Tea, but it's just one motif, and astart on another. I'll save an updated picture for next time. Soinstead I'll post some more pictures of my library, and make thismore of a book posting. Above are some of my box sets, at the verytop, romance, bodice rippers, and supernatural romance on thenext two shelves, and on the bottom shelf are my collection of JeanPlaidy historical fiction books. Many of these I brought back frommy first trip to England, about 30 years ago. All shelves are doublestacked.

Please note the carton of very rare cow eggs on the one shelf of thisbookcase. I believe these are eggs from the Holstein breed of cows,hence the black on white markings. Cow eggs are very hard to find.The females hide them well in fields and under bushes. These aretaking a heck of a long time to hatch, but I'm hoping for some sweet,mini-holsteins to run around in the back yard and keep the grasstrimmed. I figure the cats will get a kick out of them too.

These shelves hold my Star Trek (classic) and ST-TNG books. Igave up trying to keep up with these years ago because there wereso many of them coming out at one time, it was impossible to keepup. But the ones that I have are old favourites that I refer back toagain and again. The bottom shelf is books related to tv series,such as the original Battlestar Galactica, Beauty and the Beast,Forever Knight, ST-TNG, and V. The middle shelf is allclassic Trek in paperback, and the top shelf is all Star Trek, in it'svarious incarnations, in hardcover.

Hmmm. I guess you could classify this collection of books as referencebooks. Bottom shelf are books on everything from fantasy art, tobooks on the making of my favourite Sci-Fi shows, to travel books,a few history books, and cat books. Second shelf is my collection ofReader's Digest publications, my "Chronicles of..." series, a series onthe kings and queens of England, and a Time/Life series "What Life Was Like in...". Top shelf is my collection of kids books in hardcover.

All pictures are clickable for closeup inspection of titles, if you so wish.

It was the family barbecue at my Mom's residence yesterday. We wereover there by 11:00 so that we could get a good parking spot before thecrowds started really gathering and parking a problem. There was alovely selection of food (as always) and we ate well. Here's my Momenjoying her lunch. (She's going to kill me when she sees this picture...Lol!!)This is the outdoor patio, where the food was prepared and plates filled.You could sit outside to eat, or eat in the dinning room if you preferred.We ate in because of the pesky bees (sorry Becky) flitting around outside.After lunch we visited for awhile in Mom's room, then DH went home tomow the lawn, and Mom and I settled in a sun room at the end of the hallin her section of the residence to cross stitch (me) and knit (Mom). Itwas lovely with the sun streaming in, which also made for good stitchinglight. We chatted, stitched and snoozed (Mom) until DH came to pick meup around 5:00.

Michelle and Linda, the thread that I am using for Spot of Tea is OldeWillow Stitchery-Quaker Colours, Philadelphia Red. But you should knowthat the colour (to me) is more of a dark rose to a light rose, then actualred. The most recent progress picture is very dark and not a true represent-ation of the colour.

I'm reading Kathy Reichs newest book Bones to Ashes at the moment andit's a fast read so will probably be done by tomorrow. It's sitting on thekitchen table, and every time that I pass by I pick it up and read a fewmore pages.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Update. I love the medallion, second from the left, at the top. I'vestitched a variation of this design before and it's quite neat when done. Ican see a finish on this piece within the next couple of weeks, although Iwon't have much time to stitch for the next few days. It's first of the monthat work, which will take up most of my time, and leave me too tired at theend of the day to risk stitching. I've placed an order at Stitching Bit's nBobs because of their labour day sale, and I've ordered two more skeinsof thread for this piece. I'll probably only need one more, but I'm nottaking a chance. Hope there won't be much of a difference between thecolour of these threads and the new ones, but there's not much that I cando about it anyways.

Wildlife in my garden. Bunny is not a regular visitor, but he does appeara couple of times a month to graze under the bird feeders, and when hedoes I run out with a few carrots and my camera. As you can see he'snot too bothered by my presence, and I can get quite close. On this dayit was a good thing that I went out to greet him too because there wasa cat (not ours) lurking in the bushes next to the feeder watching him.I scared her away before she could get up to any mischief. She showsup in our yard during the summer months and we have to chase her offbecause she's stalking the birds, and leaving little presents in the gardenfor my DH to find. I love cats but I don't appreciate having to clean upthe messes for cats that aren't mine.

I finished reading C.J. Sansom's book Dark Fire last week, and loved it somuch that I just had to check on line to see what other books might beavailable in this series, or by this author in general. It turns out thatDark Fire is the second book in the series. So I ordered the first bookfeaturing Matthew Shardlake, which is Dissolution, and the third bookSovereign. Historical mysteries, with political overtones, and lots ofperiod colour to make these stories a rich and riveting read. Delicious!!

And the latest Kathy Reichs mystery/thriller. It bugs me that the tvseries Bones, which is suppose to be based on these books, has virtuallynothing in common with the books, except for using the name of the maincharacter. I watched the pilot for the series, all excited because one ofmy favourite literary characters was being brought to life, and washugely disappointed with the results. I love David Boreanaz, but thechick who plays Tempe Brennan is in no way close to being the personwho speaks so clearly in Reichs's novels. I'm trying to get over this, andwatch the series as if it's just another mystery series, but it's dangannoying.

My SIL came through her surgery with flying colours, came here for afew days to recover, and has now gone home to finish her recovery.She's got to watch that she doesn't do any bending or lifting for awhile,and she'll need to rest up and get back into the swing of thingsgradually, but she'll manage. She has neighbours who are willing to goin and help with some things, such as tending to the needs of her cats.She was quite happy to be going home.

Well, the kids are back to school, and summer is dwindling away. Didanyone see where it went?? There's not much one can do about it, exceptrelax, stretch out on the floor, and enjoy the sun patches where ever theymay fall. As always, Phoebe leads the way. Cheers all!